Iranian lawmakers confirmed that an Iranian-Canadian university professor killed himself while he was in custody, the semi-official ILNA news agency reported Monday. The report quoted the head of parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, as saying some members of parliament, including moderate deputy parliament speaker Ali Motahari, said after watching CCTV footage from his time in custody in Tehran that Kavous Seyed-Emami took his life. Boroujerdi ...

A man wielding a machete was shot at and arrested in Iran on Monday after he tried to break into the presidential office building, Iranian news agencies reported. Tasnim news agency said he was carrying the weapon and wearing white shroud, symbolizing his readiness to sacrifice his life. The incident happened around 11 a.m. (0630 GMT). “The assailant has been arrested and hospitalized. We are trying to identify the person and find out his motive,” the deputy governor of Tehran, ...

Iranian MP Ali Reza Rahimi said that local authorities have arrested nearly 5,000 demonstrators in recent protests which took place across 100 cities. Rahimi said that most of the detainees had been released, while those remaining were held in custody for investigations in the capital city, Tehran, and Isfahan, Hamdan, Faris and Ahwaz provinces. According to Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA), MP Rahimi said that the head of the prison service in Tehran confirmed that the total number of detainees ...

Instead of blaming others Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should take responsibility for Iran’s economic and political shortcomings, an opposition leader under house arrest said in a letter published on Tuesday. In rare public criticism of Khamenei, Mehdi Karroubi accused Iran’s hardline top authority of abusing power and urged him to change the way he runs the Islamic Republic before it is too late. “You have been Iran’s top leader for three decades, but still ...

Iranian authorities granted a four-day leave on humanitarian grounds Sunday to Baquer Namazi, the oldest of a group of American citizens known to be held in the Islamic Republic.His lawyer Jared Genser said that Namazi, an 81-year-old former UNICEF official, cannot leave Iran and is prohibited from speaking to the media. His son, business consultant Siamak Namazi, is still in jail.Both are dual Iranian-American citizens.Namazi was rushed to a hospital on January 15 -- the fourth time in the last ...

The crown prince of Iran and last heir to the Iranian monarchy, Prince Reza Pahlavi, has stressed the importance of the uprising in Iran in a statement on Thursday, saying that the Iranian people have reached a conclusion after 40 years of living under a religious dictatorship, that this regime cannot be fixed. He also said that the younger generation Iranians have no hope in fixing the current dictatorship of a regime, while the country suffers from poverty, hunger and unemployment because of ...

There’s a famous Arabic saying: “Chaos does not come individually; it comes in groups” and this is exactly what is happening in Iran. The country is being shaken by nationwide protests, the value of their riyals has deteriorated, the US Congress has voted on punishing the country, while fires burned as its biggest oil tanker collided with a cargo carrier on Chinese beachfronts. Even if protests decrease in the streets, they are increasing on various other mediums. Protests ...

A group of 16 prominent reformist figures issued a statement last Saturday rejecting claims that the widespread demonstrations in Iran had been “organized and instigated by foreigners,” as lawmakers expressed their concerns for detained students.The group, who were close to former reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, said that the regime’s “focusing on foreign issues and ignoring the real reasons for public resentment led to the protests”.Al Arabiya’s ...

More than 1,000 students, most of whom attend Tehran University, are among those who have been detained since protesters erupted across several cities in Iran.A report by the Iranian Students' News Agency quoted Mahmoud Sadeghi, a reformist member of parliament, as saying that “many of them were not involved in protests”.At least 21 people have been killed in the ongoing protests, which erupted across the country 10 days ago against the regime.Protests in Iran have resumed for the ...

Despite the scandalous attempt of the regime to launch counter-demonstrations in some cities, people in different cities of Iran came to the streets again on the seventh day of the uprising to express their oppostition to the ominous regime. Despite the presence of a large number of security forces, including police and intelligence personnel, IRGC, Bassij, plainclothed riot police and mercenaries on motorcycles, demonstrations and clashes have been reported from various parts of Tehran. News of ...